Sand is a 25'-long computer-music composition. It can be experienced as a complete piece of music, listened to from beginning to end; or it can be experienced more like one might experience a painting or a sculpture: at one's own pace, examining and taking apart it's sonic events, in any order one wishes.

The interface that allows this is now publicly available from this page. Officially, it's still in a "beta-test" state, though it seems to work for most people.

All the versions below should work for Mac OSX. The version "as separate patches" should work for Windows (as well as Mac), but in this case, if you don't own MAX/MSP, you'll need to download and install the free Runtime version of the application.)

In any case, try it out, and send me your comments at chris at music dot columbia dot edu.

To read more about the aesthetic, technical and theoretical bases of Sand, go here.

© 1994-2007, by Christopher Bailey. All rights reserved. Warning: Unauthorized reproduction, or commercial use, of these recordings is prohibited by Federal Law and subject to criminal prosecution.

DOWNLOAD/INSTALL:

1. First: everyone should download the Basic_Audio_Install. This should unzip to a folder "sand" with some audio files in it.
   Windows Users:
   1. Your first step should be to download and install MAX/MSP RunTime from Cycling '74, if it (or MAX/MSP full version) is not already installed on your machine.
   2. Next, download the Basic_Audio_Install, and unzip it. When I did this on a PC, I got a bunch of wierd errors. Just ingore them. (Press OK). After unzipping, you should have 2 folders in there: Sand and _MACOSX. The former is the important one, the latter you can ignore or delete.
   
   
   
2. After that, there are several possibilities for downloading the application:
   • If you've just got a plain old Mac with no special audio system, then 3 or 4 below should work for you.
   • If you've got an audio system like MOTU, Digi, Hammerfall, or whatever, you'll want to download 4 below, and follow the instructions there.
   • Finally, if you're a curious programmer or have a sudden bizarre desire to help me improve the beta version of this thing, download 6.
   • Windows users, see # 6.
   
   
   
3. The simple, hassle-free (if it works) version of the application. Just download it, and when it unzips, there should be a file "sand_1_0"; slip that file into the "sand" folder you downloaded before. Double-click it to run it. Sometimes you have to double-click it a couple times before it actually opens/runs. I'm not sure why.
   
   
4. The Application with its "innards" showing: This is especially for those of you with MOTU, Digi, or whatever (above and beyond the built-in) audio systems. To use it, do the following:
   1. (Download and unzip the Basic_Audio_Install, above.)
   2. Download the Application with its "innards" showing.
   3. Stick this version of "sand_1_0" into the "sand" folder with the basic audio files.
   4. Double-Click to run it. Again, for reasons that escape me for the moment, you may have to try double-clicking it a few times, to make it open/run.
   5. When you run it, move the "interface" window aside, and go into the "uber" window. Look for the "~dac" object, and double-click on it. The top few rows there allow you to set your audio device. Or/also, at the bottom of the settings window, is a button "Audio Driver Setup", click it and proceed logically. That should get you sound output.
   
   
   
5. A MAX/MSP Collective. You can only run this if you have MAX/MSP Runtime (or full MAX/MSP), which you can get for free from Cycling '74. After you've installed MAX/MSP RunTime, then, to install this collective version, download the Basic_Audio_Install, above, then download the collective itself, and then follow the instructions for #5 iii-v, above. This version seems to generate a bunch of errors and not work when I've opened it, but I'll leave it up for now for testing purposes.
   
   
6. .zip file of all the separate patches.
   MAC OSX users: If you're curious to check out the individual patches separately, download this one. You'll need to be running the MAX/MSP application, either the RunTime version or the fully functional version. These files must be put in the "sand" folder, at the same level as the audio files (i.e. not in a sub-folder). To run Sand, double-click or open the patch uber.
   Windows users:
   
   1. Download the separate patches
   2. Unzip (Again, you may see a bunch of errors, just click "OK" through them.)
   3. Go into the Sand_Patches folder.
   4. Ignore the _MACOSX folder. Instead, go into the next Sand_Patches folder. You should see lots of files in here.
   5. Select all (ctrl-A).
   6. Cut (ctrl-X)
   7. Now go back into the Sand folder from step #1, above.
   8. Paste (ctrl-V) the files into here.
   9. To run the interface, start MAX/MSP RunTime (or full version). Do Open, and find the patch "Uber", which should now be in the Sand folder. (You can't run it by double-clicking Uber because (at least in my experience) it doesn't know that this is a MAX/MSP patch.)
   
   

Additional Audio (see the README):
Sections 5 - 8
Sections 9 - 14
Sections 15 - 18
Sections 19 - 21
Sections 22 - 25
Sections 26 - 29
Sections 30 - 33
Sections 34 - 36
Sections 37 - 38
Sections 39 - 41
Sections 42 - 45
Sections 46 - 48
Sections 46 - 50
Sections 51 - 52
Sections 53 - 55
Sections 56 - 57
Sections 58 - 61
Sections 62 - 63
Sections 64 - 66
Sections 67 - 69
Sections 70 - 72